


i'll be the blood if you'll be the bones

by ninejs



Series: mary's (failed) attempt at fanille week 2017 [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XIII
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, F/F, Minor Character Death, my monstrosity that's 5 months late
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-18 23:35:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12398562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninejs/pseuds/ninejs
Summary: One day, everything is normal. They are young and innocent and holding hands. The next, their hometown is gone and all they have is each other.





	i'll be the blood if you'll be the bones

**Author's Note:**

> au notes here, excuse for my laziness at the bottom.
> 
> this is actually day 2. i didn't publish this before 3 because i wasn't done with it. the prompt i chose was zombie apocalypse, so... here are my notes on that:  
> \- i do not like zombies. in fact i hate zombie media. it's just not interesting to me. but... i really couldn't stay away from writing a fanille zombie au. it spoke to me. this is gonna be pretty simple and not focus on zombies since i don't know much about them.  
> \- the zombies are cie'th! ...i thought that was clever.  
> \- i tried to keep this mirror more important events/character interactions from the first game (if you don't understand, i think you will when you read this), but because of that i have to give a warning for minor character death. you can probably figure it out if you look at the character tags.  
> \- also going off of that, this means no noel, yeul and caius. this was sort of meant to be an au of the first game, so as much as i love those guys, i just couldn't fit em in here. sorry!

Fang wishes she knew a way to reverse what happened.

One day, everything was normal. They were happy, and they were innocent, free of worries past what they were having for dinner the next day, not how they were going to avoid the hell of an apocalypse outside that was breaking down their doors. Fang would trade _anything_ to go back to happier times, when Vanille was safe and didn’t seem like she had the world on her shoulders, dragging her down.

It’s so difficult to watch her act happy like she’s keeping it together when Fang can see that her cheer and optimism is just a front. She’d been terrified from day one, when they’d heard about it on the news, but shrugged it off, thinking it would never come this far south. They were wrong. To make matters worse, Vanille’s parents were the first to turn, when it reached Oerba.

Fang only wished she could erase the sounds of Vanille’s screams that night and the terrible memories she had of that awful night.  

But she couldn’t worry about that now. They had to keep moving.

The two girls had long since abandoned Oerba, and Fang wondered now if anyone was left, if anyone else made it out. After Vanille’s parents were gone, it seemed like everyone they knew had fallen victim to the virus, including Fang’s parents. As terrifying as it was, Fang couldn’t just lay down and die, especially not when she could at least save Vanille.

They had been on the run ever since, hopping from town to town, getting supplies and a place to stay for a few days before they decided it was too risky to stay. Vanille was still desperately attached to the idea they might be able to find another group of humans so that they could form some kind of colony, but Fang feared that the situation might be too grave for even that. At this point, she hoped they could come across just one other person, or a sign that someone else was alive and moving, just like they were. She wondered if Vanille noticed how most of the supplies they were finding went untouched, how so many supplies were still left. All signs pointed to them being the only survivors around the area. Fang didn’t have the heart to bring that up with Vanille and crush her hope, so she stayed silent about it. But Vanille was fearfully observant, and no apocalypse could stop that… Deep down, Vanille must have known. But she stayed strong, as cheerful and optimistic as she could. It made Fang’s heart ache.

She sighed. It was the last night they could spend in this town. It was best to get some sleep… or as much as she could.

Vanille gazed over at her, eyes asking the always unspoken question. The answer was always the same: Fang opened her arms, and two huddled together, wondering how much longer they had.

* * *

Palumpolum's streets were clear. There were no large crowds of people dancing from store to store, and no tourists stopping to take pictures. Though Fang had only been here once before, she could tell how eerily different it has become. The only sound was a low, distant growling, groaning noise, and it was one that Fang could never seem to stop hearing, no matter where she and Vanille went. She’d gotten so used to hearing it that everything could go back to normal and she would still hear it.

Vanille grasped her hand, frightened by the lack of noise and amount of empty space. _The perfect place to be ambushed, if we're not careful_ , Fang thought.

"Do you think that anyone else is here?" she asked, voice like a whisper.

Fang shrugged, "I'm not sure. But we can't worry about that now. Let's look around at the stores and get out of here. I don't think this place is safe."

Vanille nodded, and opens her mouth, only to close it when something rustled from somewhere around them. "What was that?" she asked, pushing herself closer to Fang.

Fang tried not to linger on how much closer the two have gotten since the virus began to spread, as if personal space was no longer a concept. She wished that she could stop her heart from wanting it to mean something more, especially considering their situation, but she just couldn't help herself.

The rustling got louder until they heard a soft "oh" from the right. When they turned to look, it was a young boy, no more than sixteen, staring back at them with scared green eyes.

"You guys... are safe, right?" he asked, a knife in his hand. Fang stared at the way he held it so unsteadily, clearly unused to holding any kind of weapon and felt a pang of sympathy. One so young should never have had to face this.

"Come on out, we don't bite!" Fang said, barking out with laughter. Not much later, she realized just how poor taste her joke was in when the boy’s eyes widened and he stepped back, obviously scared out of his mind. Vanille glared at her, shook her head and pulled away from Fang to inch closer to the boy.

"Don't mind Fang," Vanille started, her tone as gentle and understanding as always, "We're not going to hurt you. In fact, we're really happy to see someone else out here."

He nodded, finally coming out from his hiding spot and approaching them. "My name is Hope, by the way. Hope Estheim," he said, voice still full of fear and sounding like he'd bolt at any time if they weren’t careful. _It's like dealing with a lost puppy._

"I'm Vanille, and that's Fang." Vanille's introduction was full of cheer and felt like sunshine in comparison to the dark radio silence that surrounded them.

The way Hope's eyes darted back and forth made it clear that he wasn’t even remotely interested in introductions. Fang wanted to tell him to spit out whatever it was he was worried about, but she thought better of it when she remembered how terrified he was, and that it’s probably been a long time since he’s had actual human contact. It was, after all, the first time she had seen another sane human besides Vanille in months.

"I just...," he started, looking like whatever he was about to say next was weighing him down like heavy chains, "I need some help. It's my mom. I really need to get her to Bodhum."

Fang's eyebrow lifted in confusion. "That's pretty far north for a young boy and his mom. Any specific reason why you need to get there?"

Hope sighed, twiddling with his fingers nervously. "It'll be easier to show you. _But_ , if I show you, you have to promise not to do anything rash. Otherwise, I'll just wait for someone else to pass through."

Fang's gut told her to say _no, we can't help, and we're not interested, anyway._ But Vanille looked at her, pleading with her to help the poor boy. Fang couldn't find it in her to say no to that. When she nodded back at her, Vanille's face filled with a big smile, and if she got that big smile every time she agreed to help, Fang would help every person she could.

“We promise."

Hope nodded and started leading them back into some clothing store where it looked like he had stopped for the night. There was an older woman laying on a pile of clothes who Fang guessed was his mother.

"This is my mom," he said, quietly, alerting Fang to the fact that the woman was sleeping. He picked up her arm, carefully, trying not to awaken his mother, showing them a red mark on her inner arm, near her wrist.

 _Tooth marks_. With horror, Fang realized the woman had been bitten. "Wh-"

"Please! Don't say anything. I know it's really bad. But I can't... I can't just leave her. She's my mom." He sounded on the verge of tears.

Fang closed her mouth. She knew for a fact had Vanille been bitten she would do _anything_ to save her. Instead, she asked, "What do you think you can do for her in Bodhum?"

Hope's eyes filled with steely determination, the way Vanille's looked whenever she was trying to hide her fear. "There's this group of people there, called NORA. They said they're gonna start escorting people to Eden, where there's a cure. If I get her there in time... maybe I can still save her."

Before Fang could even blink, Vanille was already discussing a route to Bodhum with Hope. It was risky but Fang decided that maybe things would be okay. If anything else, they couldn’t just leave a kid out here alone with a potential cie’th.

* * *

Hope and his mother (Fang discovered that her name is Nora... which is nothing short of ironic) are welcome company. Although she's been bitten and the virus is making it's way through her body, Nora is nothing if not hopeful and strong. So strong, in fact, Fang believed that she’d make it to Bodhum.

(Fang even asked her how she keeps it together, how she can bear it. The question of _how do you do it, knowing how much of a risk you are, how much danger you're in, how much danger you put us in, how you might have to leave your son_ _behind_ goes unspoken and unanswered. The only thing Nora said was "Moms are tough." Fang left it at that.)

Some days, it seemed like they had to snap Nora out of falling prey to the virus. She tried her best to hide it from Hope, and she asked Fang and Vanille to do the same. Fang worried, wondering if this was a good idea after all, but Vanille insisted they at least try to see them to Bodhum.

Since they first encountered him, Hope had taken quite a shine to Vanille. He seemed more open, more willing to talk about his life in Palumpolum (minus his father, but Nora told them that Hope had a strained relationship with the man and that he dodges the topic of him even more after they had to put him down the night he turned cie’th). But he was only comfortable around his mother and Vanille. Being alone with Fang seemed to quiet him back into the boy hiding and rustling around, waiting for someone to come help him. Despite that, Fang always tried her best to protect him from the cie’th when they have to fight them off, but left the gentle empathy, shielding, and understanding to Vanille.

The best part about traveling with the Estheims, at least for Fang, was the fact that they have guns: something Fang could never seem to get her hands on, forced to resort to knives and dangerous close combat fighting. Powerful weapons that can put cie’th down quickly and for long periods of time, if not forever. Without a constant supply of ammo, though, they had to be resourceful about the way they use them.

Fang grew accustomed to having them around, and the energy that a group of more people brings. They get things done faster, and although there is a bigger risk for more people (and of course, a bigger risk considering a woman they are traveling with could go feral at any moment), Fang had really grown to enjoy travelling with them.

The only problem was the lack of privacy she and Vanille had. As selfish as it made her feel, she missed the silent intimacy they shared when it was just the two of them. It seemed that with new companions came a new shyness from Vanille in her affection that Fang has never seen before. She still held Fang's hand, pressed herself into Fang's arms at night, but it’s just not like her to be so shy. Even in Oerba when they were kids she was never shy about being affectionate with Fang. Fang chalked it up to growing up and everything that had happened since their easy childhood, and she began to understand why Vanille would be so nervous.

She said nothing about it, just accepted it when Vanille snuggled up to her without the question in her eyes. Fang only wished she was as brave as Nora so she could ask Vanille what all of this means for them, especially when Vanille makes it a ritual to kiss Fang goodnight. (And that's certainly something they've never done before, not even in their youth.)

* * *

 

About a week into their journey, there was a gunshot that went off that alerted them to the fact that there was yet another person nearby. Vanille, hopeful and happy that they'd probably found someone else, said that they should go help. Fang was reluctant, as she always was, constantly on edge and high-alert, but she couldn’t stop herself from going along with backing up whoever's out there.

They have to be quick and accurate. There's not a large group of cie’th surrounding the man, but if they're not careful, they'll get overwhelmed. He's holding them off the best he can with his dual-wielding fighting style, but the amount of fear and adrenaline he must be feeling makes his shots inaccurate, hitting their bony, crystallized limbs and not the heads, or the red eye-like spots on the center of their chest.

Nora takes aim, and on the count of three, they all began to attack. It doesn't take much with all of them working together, and in the end, the man is panting, sweat rolling down his dark skin.

"I thought I was a goner back there," he starts, "Thank you."

As it turns out, they're adding more than just one person to their group. Sazh, as he introduces himself, is a father to a boy even younger than Hope. Fang felt another pang of sadness at the thought children having to deal with this. Unsurprisingly, Dajh, Sazh's son, takes a shine to Vanille, who has the ability to get children to fall in love with her in a matter of minutes. She also has the uncanny ability to keep them entertained for long periods of time. Frankly, Fang doesn't know how she does it.

Somewhere, in the back of her mind, Fang thinks about what that might have meant for them in an easier time, when they owned more than one pair of dirty clothes at a time.

(Especially when only a few days later, Vanille and Dajh running ahead already creates an issue. A cie’th appears, in all its crystallized, bony glory, and Vanille screams. Fang rushes ahead, only to find her and Dajh perfectly fine, just frightened. The cie’th corpse is on the ground in front of them, and they don't run ahead anymore after that. Fang gets lost in thoughts of what it would be like if things were safe. Sazh sighs heavily that night, when everyone but him and Fang are asleep, saying what Fang's been thinking for weeks: "it's not right. Why'd the kids have to get dragged into this mess?" She sighs, making a groan of agreement, but Sazh surprises her when he says “you’re just a kid, too.”)

* * *

 

In the following week, Nora's transformation completes. Thinking back on it, she didn't actually last as long as Fang thought she did, considering it had pnly been about two weeks since they left the ghastly, empty streets of Palumpolum. Still, given everything, it's impressive. Moms are tough, alright.

Fang takes notice quickly, and wanting to keep Hope and Dajh away from what has to be done, she tells Vanille to take them and go. Hope takes one glance back, and at the look in his eyes, Fang knows that Hope has realized what happened. _That kid is too damn smart for his own good_.

That leaves her and Sazh to carry out the dirty work.

By the time Nora loses all control, a single shot is fired, echoing in the distance.

Even from a distance, she swears she can hear Vanille telling Hope that _it will be okay_.

Not for the first time, Fang wonders if any truth rings in the words of such a heavy and hollow statement.

* * *

 

With Nora gone, Hope suggests that they do what they please, as there's no reason to go to Bodhum. Vanille's eyes flash with something unsaid, just for a moment. As much as Fang wants to ask, Vanille has hesitated to talk about whatever happened between her, Dajh, and whatever cie’th they ran into. The only thing she says is "It was scary, and I wish Dajh had never had to see it." But her tone is heavy, weighted down with something that sounds like guilt, and Fang fears -- no, _knows_ \-- that something else happened that Vanille won't talk to her about.

It hurts, just a little bit, for all they've been together, that Vanille still won't tell her everything, that Vanille still thinks she can't trust Fang with anything. Fang would never judge her, nor tell her off or do anything to hurt her.

But the same day she worries about Vanille not trusting her is the night that she tells her about Dajh.

(“I’m worried about him. I got the cie’th but… I just feel like we should go to Bodhum, just in case. He could be at risk, Fang, and it’s all my fault. I don’t know how to tell Sazh. How do you tell a father that you’re the reason there’s a risk of him having to kill his own son?”)

Vanille’s tears are heavy. Fang suddenly understands the reason she had been so much more passionate about getting to Bodhum recently. _Nothing motivates anyone more than guilt these days, I guess_.

Fang quells her sobbing and tells her not to worry about it. She’ll take care of the explanation. The half-baked explanation she gives the rest of the group, however, is that Eden is probably their safest bet, and that they should head out to Bodhum to make sure they have an easy way to get there.

Fang’s been weighted down by Vanille’s guilty secret, now, too, but it’s okay. They’ll share the guilt like they share everything else.

* * *

Their trek to Bodhum is heavier, sadder than before. Without Nora, and wit the worries Vanille and Fang harbor about Dajh and the guilt they feel about not telling Sazh the truth, the whole group is a mess. Hope is angry, and then sad, and then angry again, completely unable and unsure how to deal with his grief over his mother. He’s curt during the day, extremely difficult to talk to and always wanting to start a fight, even going so far as to purposefully put himself at risk when having to fight off cie’th, but Fang hears him crying at night. The situation isn’t doing the poor kid any favors. He just doesn’t have the proper place or time to grieve and heal.

Usually, Sazh and Vanille are the ones parenting him and chastise him for his vengeful behavior, but Fang knows that he really just can’t help it. He’s a teenager going through too much, so she takes him under her wing, teaches him how to properly hold his knife, tips on aiming guns, anything to make sure he’s more competent in a fight and less likely to get hurt. His uncontrollable grief seems to quiet down after that, not completely, but enough that it’s easier for the group to parent him and for Hope to manage as well. If there’s one thing Fang can promise to the kid, it’s that she’ll get him to Eden safe and sound.

And she keeps that promise. Within the end of the week, they finally reach Bodhum.

The entrance is a war zone. There are places for cover everywhere, guards placed behind each, ready to take aim at any cie’th that may come to disturb the peace of the city. That colony Vanille was hoping for really does exist all the way out here.

The big, white-haired guard that’s currently on duty stops them the minute they get one inch of the city’s border.

Fang is angered, wanting to be let in right away, seeing as they’ve been travelling for weeks and have children with them who need proper food. The guard, called Snow, clearly gets it.

“Look, courtesy call. If it was up to me, I’d let everyone in, no questions ask. But we have to make sure those of you at risk get in line to be cured. City full of survivors can’t be breached. You get the picture.”

Snow’s boisterous, too, and talks a mile a minute as he leads them to the proper place to get checked out and tested. Despite all of the shit he’s obviously in charge of, he’s even more optimistic than Vanille and truly believes he’ll save the human race. Fang hopes he and his team can, but she’s not counting on it. Vanille, on the other hand, starts to perk up the more she hears about Snow and NORA’s plan.

Hope is still sulking, clearly wishing his mother was here. Fang feels no short amount of sympathy and sadness for the kid, but he’s not her main concern. It’s Dajh. She and Vanille hadn’t seen any signs to worry about but if the medical experts find anything wrong with him, Fang knows that they’ll crack and tell Sazh the truth and it’ll be nothing short of a mess.

To keep her mind off of it, Fang decides to ask Snow about something else. “How was the cure developed?”

Snow perks up again, ready to shoot off another long explanation with his motor mouth. “My fiancee!” he started, clearly happy to brag about the woman in question. “You see, she’s actually immune to the virus. She got bitten but nothing really happened. Eventually the doctors here figured out that she was immune to everything and started using her blood to find a cure.”

“You’re engaged?” Sazh asks, holding onto a sleeping Dajh, “You look pretty young.”

Snow scratches the back of his head, embarrassed. “Well… yeah, see when she got bitten I proposed to her and promised to help find a way to keep her safe.”

Vanille coos. “That’s so sweet!” she says, holding Fang’s hand suddenly. Fang hopes that means what she thinks it means.

Hope, upset, says “I think it’s dumb. She was at risk and you just proposed like that? You had no idea if you could help her or not.”

Vanille gasps, clearly shocked at his angry outburst. Fang gives him a look, hoping she conveys that it’s bad to upset the guy between them and safety and Sazh lets out a loud, long sigh.

“Sorry. He’s… going through a lot,” Sazh explains, clearly not wanting to bring up Nora for fear of setting the boy off more.

“It’s okay,” Snow said, “My future sister-in-law said the same thing, essentially. She thought it was thoughtless of us and wouldn’t give her blessing.”

Hope perked up again, “She’s right! It was selfish. What if she hadn’t been immune to the virus? Why would you even bother with a proposal in that situation?”

Fang sighed again, thinking that they were all going to get kicked out of the city and sent farther away from safety. But Snow just laughed.

“Jeez kid, you sound just like Lightning! You should meet her, I think you two would really hit it off!” he said, rustling Hope’s hair.

Hope looked mad, like he wanted to rip Snow’s hand off, but his eyes also looked sad. Fang could tell he was feeling guilty about putting the group at risk for nothing, since his mother didn’t make it. In that regard, he wasn’t unlike her and Vanille, with how they were feeling about Dajh. The line of questioning she had used to stray away from thinking about him just brought her back to it.

Vanille pulled Hope closer to her, holding onto him. He was angry and being relatively unreasonable, but Vanille could always tell when someone was hurting. It’s why she squeezed Fang’s hand after wrapping her arm around Hope’s shoulder.

They reached the medical center not long after, and Fang knew that a confrontation with Sazh was coming soon, whether she and Vanille wanted it or not.

* * *

 

Everything checked out for Fang, Vanille and Hope, but when it came to Sazh, things got hairy. He had come out to the lobby to tell them that the doctors and nurses alike had been concerned about Dajh, but that he had made sure nothing ever came near Dajh.

“There’s no reason for anything to be wrong. I just don’t get it. What could have happened?” Sazh was asking questions to the air, pacing back and forth.

Vanille bit her lip and then yelled out “It was me!” Fang panicked, and Hope perked up from his lonely position in the corner of the makeshift waiting room.

“Back when me and Dajh were goofing around… that day I took out a cie’th by myself,” Vanille started, already starting to cry, “I thought… I thought it would be okay since I got to it right before it hurt either of us… but I looked away so I could get a weapon to take aim with for just a minute… and before I knew it the thing was touching Dajh.”

Sazh looked floored. Vanille was sobbing now and Hope was biting his nails.

“Did… did the rest of you know about this? And not tell me?”

Fang pulled the crying Vanille towards her, “Just me. I’m sorry, Sazh, we just… didn’t know if there was anything to worry about. We kept an eye on him and made sure we came to Bodhum just in case--”

Sazh turned his back towards them. A nurse came looking for him after that, and he was gone. The three left behind sat in silence until Snow came bounding in, saying that they could go see when the next train was leaving if they wanted to head out to Eden.

Except, when he saw the crying Vanille he pursed his lips. “Was this a bad time?”

Hope sighed in anger, “Obviously.”

Fang wondered what was going to happen. Dajh was still being examined, Sazh wasn’t talking to them, Vanille was inconsolable and Hope’s uncontrollable anger had returned full force.

At this point, she was just happy everyone was alive. But she had no clue what they were going to do now. The group had hit a bump in the road. They were falling apart.

Or at least that’s what Fang thought.

* * *

 

Sazh apologized to them a few days later, but Vanille and Fang made it clear that they were the ones who really needed to be sorry. It turned out Dajh was fine, in fact, he was great. He had been immune to the virus the whole time, and so the father and son were going to go to Eden so that Dajh could help develop a more potent cure. Snow promised that Sazh would be involved in everything that happened, and that the two would never be separated, so Sazh had decided it would be okay to help out in developing the cure.

But while Sazh and Dajh would be given an express ride to Eden, if Hope, Vanille and Fang wanted to go, they would have to wait like the other survivors wanting to leave. Fang told Vanille she wanted to get Hope to the safest place possible since he was a kid and needed a better environment to grieve in, so the three had decided to go. Snow even decided he’d stick around and go to Eden with them when they got a chance to. He was planning on heading back to see his fiancee, Serah, but had explained that he wanted to be there for Hope and help out. Snow thought the kid needed a big brother.

Hope was definitely angry about this turn of events at first, _especially_ when Snow explained that NORA had originally been about what the name stood for: no obligations, rules, or authority.

“You guys are nothing more than punks pretending to be a serious organization!” he had yelled, but again, Snow was laughing, saying he sounded way too much like Lightning.

“We’re doin’ pretty good for a couple of punks though, huh?”

Hope couldn’t deny that.

That was how it was for a few weeks. The next train ride for survivors was a few weeks away, seeing as there were a good amount of people wanting to leave and the fact that in a world like this, it became rather difficult to keep a train up and running. But NORA was in charge of that, too.

Snow had, albeit reluctantly, grown on Hope. The kid was still most comfortable around Vanille, and he was less angry these days, seeking comfort from her more often than naught, but Snow was really proving to be that big brother he said would be. Snow had explained that he was orphaned young like Hope, and not unlike Fang and Vanille, so he knew exactly what Hope was feeling. He had been just as angry as Hope when his parents died in a car crash.

It was amazing that Snow kept his spirits up. He was optimistic enough to help even Hope start smiling and even laughing. Things were getting better since the day Fang thought everything fell apart in that waiting room.

Now that the burden was off of her shoulders and they were in a safer place, Vanille’s optimism and cheerfulness had stopped being a front. She had confessed to Fang that everything was okay again now that nothing was falling apart, although she still missed Oerba and was still upset about their parents.

“It’ll all be okay, though,” Vanille said with a smile, “so long as I have you!”

Yeah. After that one, Fang couldn’t restrain herself from kissing Vanille. The latter was overcome with joy, saying that she was always trying to hint at her feelings but could never fully confess when the world was burning around them.

“It’s still not completely safe, you know,” Fang had said.

“Well… I can’t restrain myself anymore,” Vanille reasoned, “I love you too much to do that.”

Fang had to agree. After all, the rest of the world may be a mess, but they could take steps to help fix it. When they got to Eden, they planned to join NORA, even Hope, if only to honor his late mother.

Things were okay for Fang and Vanille. None of this was normal, and some days, Fang still wished they were home in Oerba, but they had a new family now. It was as close to normal as they were ever going to get again, and Fang was okay with that, so long as she had Vanille.

**Author's Note:**

> uhhhhhhh.... i am 5 months late. i'm really sorry. i wish i had an excuse but really i don't. i've just been in a big slump and writing has been kinda hard for me. i was preparing for college only to take a semester off and so since i've been waiting around so i was able to do things to prepare i've been playing games and just... not writing lmao.
> 
> a convo w a friend helped inspire me to actually finish this though. people seemed to like my past two entries (why lmao) and so i really wanted to finish at least this piece for yall.  
> however, ao3's policy of deleting drafts is homophobic because i'm gay and it inconveniences me. i always save drafts here and then go in a slump and forget about them so they get deleted before i can save them to google docs. luckily i had most of this one, my beautiful monstrosity.  
> i feel like ship week pieces are meant to be pretty short. this... i did the most. i'm sorry. i just had an idea for this one that took off and before i knew it i was almost at 2k with a piece that didn't even feel halfway done. i think i did shorten it from what it was originally supposed to be since i waited so long to finish it. and this shit is still 5k. bitch what the fuck.
> 
> also a final thought: hope. i'm so sorry. i love you so much. my beautiful son. but killing off at least one person was necessary. i even put poor dajh at risk until the end. however, the true epilogue for this is that hope is going to develop a really potent cure with his genius ass and save the world. you're amazing and i hope you enjoy the 5 new parents you get for your 2 dead ones. love you.
> 
> thank you so much for reading, especially if you read my bullshit here! xx


End file.
